MONTREAL -- The former manager of an arcade in Laval has been arrested for the third time in as many years for sex crimes against minors, most recently after allegedly reoffending this February while awaiting trial.

Michel Ianiri, 60, was arrested Feb. 25 on several counts, including sexual assault, spanning the years 1980 to 2021, Laval police said in a statement.

His alleged victims have mostly been teenage boys from ages 14 to 18, police said.

The most recent were allegedly assaulted just this winter, even though Ianiri was already facing several charges at the time. He was living in the community pending his trial, which is scheduled for this spring.

The case goes back to the 1980s, when Ianiri, who went by "Mike," was the manager of an arcade on Laurier Blvd. in the Laval-des-Rapides neighbourhood, police said.

"Some witnesses reportedly said that the accused invited minors to his home in order to use drugs and perform sexual touching," they said.

He was first arrested and charged in 2019. That initial round of charges was reported in January 2020.

After that, three new victims came forward, police explained in Monday's release. That led to a second set of charges, laid in May 2020, explained Laval police spokesperson Stephanie Beshara.

But in February, Ianiri allegedly "reoffended using the same strategy," police said.

That doesn't mean he was recruiting minors at the arcade. That employment dated back to the 80s, and Ianiri was unemployed in February when the new assaults allegedly took place, Beshara said.

He had been freed to live in the community under certain conditions while awaiting his court date, in late May or early June of this year, to face all the charges, Beshara said. He was unemployed at the time.

The conditions placed on him while in the community were "around the victim," Beshara said.

When police said he used the same strategy as the historical cases to victimize minors this year, they meant the use of drugs in the grooming process, Beshara wrote.

"He provides drugs to victims and abuses them," she said.

Police said in the release that their evidence suggests other people may have been victimized by the same man and said that investigators would like to talk to those people.

Ianiri has now been detained again. On Feb. 26, he appeared before the court by videoconference on several counts, including sexual assault, making death threats, and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

He will next return to court on March 18, and his trial date will come up either in late May or early June.